


Twist of the Hand

by azalera



Category: Naruto
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Brief Porn, Canon Compliant, Founders Era, Hallucinations, M/M, Mild Gore, Minor Character(s), POV Hashirama Senju, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Valley of the End, post-VoTE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:41:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25273330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azalera/pseuds/azalera
Summary: Hashirama catches a glimpse, and it is so brief that he thinks nothing of it. He continues his walk back home, engrossed in a newly proposed policy, sure that the red-black haired man peering from behind a stall was simply a trick of the eye.
Relationships: Senju Hashirama & Uzumaki Mito, Senju Hashirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 7
Kudos: 57





	Twist of the Hand

The air is petrichor and Hashirama’s limbs are rotting wood. He walks, and walks, and then his legs crumble and his knees hit the ground with a weak _thump._ His one arm hangs uselessly like a dead branch; his other arm roots into the dirt with a bunched fist. The world is silent. 

A warm hand curls on his shoulder. Squeezes. Finally, a gentle shake. Hashirama shifts, peers up into his brother’s eyes— 

The sharingan spin, a furious fire, and the hand is gloved, red-black hair spilling out onto Hashirama’s face, and that gloved hand curls around his neck and _snaps—_

Hashirama jolts upright from his bed, heart pounding and breathless, and the hand on his shoulder is smaller, gloveless, kind. Hashirama shudders. 

“A bad dream?” a voice asks, and it barely reaches his ears. Hashirama is quiet for a long moment. He turns his head. His eyes are dull. He smiles. 

“Just a bad dream.” 

He feels that hand next on his bare back, but for a moment the hand is cooler, larger, scarred on the thumb and across a palm, nimble, hard. 

“Mito,” he affirms, quickly meets her gaze, leans in, kisses her cheek, and plants his bare feet on the cool floor. She watches him as he rises and dresses for the day. He smiles at her as he slips on his haori. He laughs occasionally at breakfast. And then he leaves briskly. When he returns from work, it is deep in the night. Mito lays in bed, eyes shut and mind awake, and listens as Hashirama falls into bed. He doesn’t touch her. But when she reaches for his hand, he gives a squeeze and smiles and seems to sleep. 

Time passes. Hashirama learns to wake silently. He learns to reach for his wife. He comes home sooner, shares a meal before bed, sleeps. The dreams are quieter. 

And then he catches a glimpse, and it is so brief that Hashirama thinks nothing of it. He continues his walk back home, engrossed in a newly proposed policy, sure that the red-black haired man peering from behind a stall was simply a trick of the eye. 

A week later, and the man is in the shadowed corner of the office, skin peeling and yellow and flesh stinking and rotting. Hashirama must be _tired,_ he reasons, and he leaves early that night and sleeps late into the next morning. 

When he awakes, still and calm and perfectly trained, the hand around his cock is rancid and decaying, and the smell of smoke and piss and death penetrate his nose. Hashirama climaxes into the sheets as he keels over and spits bile out from his throat. 

Hashirama returns to work, but the work days are shorter and he sleeps longer and longer each day. He stops smiling. He stops laughing at breakfast. Tobirama observes and follows him, more and more. Mito confront him. There’s just so much paperwork, he tells them, that’s all. He’s just a little tired. It’s the winter, now, and his bones ache a little more. 

“I’m carrying our child,” Mito tells him one night, and for a brief while he can finally _see_ her again, gaze into her brown eyes instead of spinning red. She births their baby, and the life returns to his face as he holds that child. The shadows are easier to ignore, now, and they are quick to have another baby.

He sees Madara, most days, as he remembers him on the battlefield—bloodied and cracked armor, wild hair, gloved hands, a weapon at his side. He never speaks, but he is always there in the shadows, haunting, glaring. Hashirama lives with these visions silently. Most days, life is normal. But sometimes, the visions are softer, younger, a recollection of the past—sometimes, Hashirama allows himself to look. Sometimes he stares and stares, and no one around him can seem to reach him, and they have to shake him gently to return him to reality. 

As Hashirama grows older, though, he begins to look more, and he _speaks._ He speaks to the nothingness in the shadows. His children learn to accept it. Mito confronts him, and Hashirama blinks in confusion, rubs the back of his neck and laughs it off. More and more, Tobirama has to guide him back to his paperwork, keep him focused on his meetings and cover for the little missteps. 

“You killed me, Hashirama,” Madara whispers to him at night, scarred hands ghosting along his arm. “Finally, the time has come for you to die too. We’ll be together soon.” 

War plagues the village, and Madara’s words ring in his ear, _it’s time, it’s time,_ and Hashirama kisses his wife and embraces his children and holds his granddaughter for the last time.

The battles extend deep into the forest, where the sequoia are thick and old. His heart aches as he kills one enemy, and another, and another, until the deaths are a blur and his body is soaring and bloodied and _alive._

Hashirama blinks. The air is petrichor, familiar, and his limbs are old, rotted wood. He walks, and walks, and then his legs crumble and his knees hit the ground with a weak _thump._ His organs are failing, he realizes. He’s been pierced through the lungs, and a blade hit an artery, and another came close to his heart. He knows the ways to mend and fix, but instead he falls against the earth, feels the humdrum of life throbbing beneath him, and looks up at the sky as he bleeds into the dirt. 

“Hashirama...” he hears, and the voice is real and loud and alive, and Hashirama laughs. The smile on his face reaches his eyes, and his head rolls to the side. This vision of Madara is so clear, so different, so right. Streaks of silver are in the curls of his hair, his face kissed with just a few wrinkles. Those sharingan are older, tired, but still somehow possessing a bit of the fire that none of the other visions ever had. And Madara’s hands, _heavens,_ his hands burn blissfully against Hashirama’s face. 

"We’ll be together soon,” Hashirama says. Madara peers down, rubs a thumb coolly against Hashirama’s bottom lip. Madara’s hands are bare, this time, rougher, colder, and just as nimble as they curl around Hashirama’s neck and give it a final twist. 

The bruises on Hashirama’s neck are a deep purple when Tobirama discovers his brother’s smiling, bloody corpse. 


End file.
